[governance] [liberationtech] Chinese preparing for a "Autonomous Internet" ?

Mon Jun 25 09:21:03 EDT 2012

Parminder,

I am not quite sure how I became the defender of the USG or ICANN,  but whatever.

My recollection of this case is fuzzy  - and there was a similar one involving some company that was running the Libya ccTLD by the way, if you want to go there.

Before you do though, we should recall that not only fly by night Texas companies ran ccTLDs, in the early days it was not uncommon for tech savvy ex-pats to help their homeland by setting up the ccTLD literally in their bedroom. But yes in some cases private companies set them up since the government in question did not have the tech resources to do so. And continue to do so til this day, now usually wth a contract in place and a revenue split agreed.

Anyway, my recollection was that the .iq case had to do with a bankrupt company and ICANN not knowing what to do with the domain.

In other cases I am aware of from the same time period, relatively clueless but presumably well-meaning government officers, having belatedly discovered the Internet and ccTLDs, were also trying to just grab the cTLDs from the volunteer/civil society folks who had been managing them for the national Internet community.  I won't name names here on the one in particular I am thinking of since I think he eventually reached detente with his own government.

In another case I won't name, a trusted member of the Internet technical community, who was doing an exceptionally good job of running the ccTLD, had his own university President, among others, turn on him. My advice then was: get the best lawyer you can find and fight back. Which he did, and that case had a happy ending for my now well-lawyered friend.

The point is, in this period there was no 'transparent and objective procedures' for ccTLD redelegation, and there was government on private sector conflict; government on civil society conflict; and civil society on civil society conflict.

Arguing that ICANN could have and should have done better is something I completely agree with.  But most of those conflicts had little to nothing to do with the IANA-managed root zone file change process we have been talking about up til now.

But those community members were all speaking to ICANN asking them to not automatically pull the ccTLD from civil society's, or the private sector's, care.

I believe this .iq case came in the midst of those times, when ICANN lacked - objective and transparent procedures - on what to do. Eventually, they figured out that if governments wanted their own national ccTLD, even if someone else had been running it just fine, or poorly, they had to turn it over to the government.

(Any true ICANNers can correct me if I'm wrong here.)

Anyway, I had similar suspicions to the Iraq case to the handing of the Libya domain which went down sometime back - well before the recent change in regime there -  but on closer look it turned out to be similar confusion. I believe.

Of course, the last thing I want to do is defend the Bush administration and especially its attacks on Iraq, so if those who really know the details can confirm that in fact the handling of the .iq is part and parcel of that...and not so much the general lack of transparent and objective procedures for handling ccTLD redelegation requests of that era, well then I will eat my virtual words.

Lee
________________________________
From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] on behalf of parminder [parminder at itforchange.net]
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 7:16 AM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
Subject: Re: [governance] [liberationtech] Chinese preparing for a "Autonomous Internet" ?

On Monday 25 June 2012 03:02 PM, c.a. wrote:

David, the only relevant "RFC" in the .iq case was a determination from the USG for Icann to suspend the domain.

In the circumstances, David, I dont know how you , and others, have been insisting that such kind of a thing has never ever happened, and therefore we need no protection against.

This is the worst possible transgression, and abuse, of the oversight authority by the US. What greater damning example do you need. parminder

Sent from a tablet

On 25/06/2012, at 01:01, David Conrad <drc at virtualized.org><mailto:drc at virtualized.org> wrote:

Louis,

While this was before my time at ICANN, my understanding is that the USG (or its policies) had no role in the delays relating to redelegation.  Rather, there is a long standing (and quite controversial) policy within ICANN/IANA that goes back to RFC 1591 that dictates that any change of control of a TLD must be demonstrated to be in the best interests of "the Internet community" (not necessarily the government) of the country/territory.  In the .IQ case, ICANN (not the USG) was unable to determine whether the change was in the country's "Internet community's" best interest.  In such cases, the policy dictates that the best course of action is to not make any changes until the situation stabilized in Iraq enough to establish the wishes of "the Internet community".

This policy is one of the most problematic for IANA staff to implement for obvious reasons (e.g., what does "the Internet community" mean and how do you measure its best interests), but it does not reflect USG intercession on the redelegation.

Regards,
-drc

On Jun 24, 2012, at 12:45 PM, Louis Pouzin (well) wrote:

English translation:

« Iraq gets back its domain name .Iq

by the editor, ZDNet France. Published Monday, August 8, 2005
Tags: Internet, Politics, Domain Names,

- ICANN has just returned to Iraq the management of its domain name - the ".Iq". The international body responsible for regulating the domain name system (DNS) has entrusted the task to the National Iraqi Communications and Media Commission (NCMC).

The [Irak] government organization claimed .Iq for more than a year, but Icann believed the country too unstable to do it. It validated the request at a recent meeting, saying "acting in the best interest of local and global Internet communities."

Since 1997 .Iq belonged to the Texas company InfoCom, which was responsible for its management until 2002. Date on which ICANN suspended the domain name, after several company executives were suspected of having links with Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by U.S. authorities.

The management change will allow the Iraqi government to standardize its e-mail and web addresses. »

Louis

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